Banana Pecan Muffins
New and improved! Put those brown bananas to delicious use with our easy-to-make Banana Pecan Muffins. Packed full of pecans, but lower in fat and sugar than most muffins, they make a great grab-n-go breakfast or are perfect to make ahead and freeze!
Ahhh bananas. It’s the one fruit that you can pretty much guarantee will be in our house since my husband and I each eat one every single day. So that means we buy a lot of them, which also means that sometimes we buy too many, and we get the inevitable brown bananas. No problem, that just means we’re making some of these delicious Banana Pecan Muffins!
Ingredients Needed
- Brown Bananas – These overripe bananas have the right texture to mash but also an increased amount of sweetness, perfect for this easy muffin recipe.
- All Purpose Flour – This is our go-to, but you could also make these gluten-free by using a 1:1 gluten-free flour.
- Pecans – We pack these muffins with these almost buttery sweet nuts. No pecans? No problem, these muffins are great with walnuts, too!
- Brown Sugar and Maple Syrup – I like to use a combination of these sweeteners, brown sugar for the slight molasses flavor and maple syrup for the added maple flavor.
- Eggs and Baking Powder – Eggs for structure and baking powder for leavening.
- Butter – Melted and cooled, or you could use vegetable oil.
- Vanilla Extract – Have you made your own, yet?
- Ground Ginger, Nutmeg, Cinnamon, and Salt – Flavors to complement and enhance the muffins!
Easy to Make
These Banana Pecan Muffins are easy to prep and pop in the oven. Just mash your bananas, whisk together your dry ingredients, add the rest of the wet ingredients to the bananas, and then mix in your dry.
Be sure to not overmix your batter because that will create dense muffins. Just mix enough so that all of the dry ingredients are just combined with the wet, and then fold in the chopped pecans.
Then just to your lined muffin tray and bake!
Banana Pecan Muffins! No searching for the pecans in this muffin, they are front and center!
Recipe Tips
Probably the most important piece of muffin making, don’t overmix! The “Muffin Method” of mixing is when you mix everything just enough to coat all of the dry ingredients. This will help ensure a moist, soft center. If you have a muffin that’s hard and dry, most likely that means you’ve overmixed your batter.
We prefer a nice soft outside of a muffin bottom, but if you want a more crisp outside of a muffin, you can totally omit using muffin liners and just grease your muffin tray well before adding the batter.
Using high heat will ensure the best rise because the high heat will make them rise quickly in the oven and give them the classic muffin shape.
You can absolutely bake the muffins and freeze, but it’s not suggested to make the batter in advance of baking and freezing. This is because the baking powder activates once the wet ingredients are added and therefore if you do this before you’re ready to bake, your muffins won’t rise the same.
Trust me, your future you will thank the past you if you make a batch of these and store them in the freezer! While you’re at it, whip up a batch of our Healthy Blueberry Muffins, too!
Other Overripe Banana Recipes
- Homemade Banana Waffles
- Classic Banana Walnut Bread
- Peanut Butter Banana Soft Serve
- Healthy Banana Strawberry Oat Pancakes
- Banana Maple Munchkins (Donut Holes)
Happy Muffin Baking, friends!
Enjoy! As always, if you make this recipe or any of my others, I love to hear what you think! Leave a comment below, email me, or you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest!
If you want to see more, be sure to sign up for my 5 Easy Ways to Start Cooking From Scratch!
Banana Pecan Muffins
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour 260 g
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda 6 g
- 1/2 teaspoon salt 5
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 cup brown sugar packed, 55 g
- 3 large overripe bananas 1 cup mashed
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/3 cup butter melted and cooled
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup pecans chopped, 105 g
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and line a muffin tin with liners.
- In a medium-size bowl, add flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. Whisk until it is all well combined and set aside.
- In a separate large bowl, mash the bananas. Add eggs, maple syrup, melted butter, and vanilla extra. Use a fork to whisk the eggs and then mix until it is all well combined.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet and use a spatula to gently mix just until all of the dry ingredients are mostly incorporated. It's ok if the dough is still a little lumpy and streaked from the dry ingredients.
- Add chopped pecans and use spatula to gently fold them into the batter.
- Use a spoon or ice cream scoop to fill muffin liners at least 3/4 full, using all of the batter for 12 muffins.
- Bake 25 minutes until the tops of the muffins begin to brown and a toothpick or cake tester pulls clean.
Looks delicious
These look great!! And I’m with your husband on the slightly underripe banana!! Yum.
Oh how yummy!!! Will definitely give this a go as my husband and I love bananas too! Thanks for sharing this recipe!
We love bananas too! These muffins look fantastic!
Wow, these look really amazing! I love anything with bananas in it – especially muffins and cakes. And I totally hear you about the ripe bananas! 😉 My fiancé eats one every morning too, so I always make sure to have some, but sometimes they also become over ripe, so I also freeze them for smoothie and banana ice cream! Really gorgeous photos! I’m in love! 😉
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh yeahhhhhhhh……………. this looks SOOOOOO good, shoot I REAAALLYY want one.. mail one? heh? Just pop a lil’ muffin in the mail, will ya? 🙂
Loved hearing about your guys’ love for bananas! 🙂 These look and sound great Tracy!
Looks delicious! I love banana nut flavored baked goods, especially in muffin form 🙂
We love all things banana. My hen I have over ripe bananas I throw them in the freezer, then when I have enough I defrost and bake with them. We just had a banana split cake yesterday for a Kindergarten graduation. Great use of my bananas!
I can’t wait to make these. They look so delicious! Pinning this recipe so I don’t lose it. 😉